It is common practice in the roofing industry to drive nails into place by means of a nailer, which is a powered gun-like instrument that drives nails into timbers or shingles. A large number of nails are loaded into a nailer of this type at one time. These nails are usually unitized in the form of a spiral wound roll or coil comprising a plurality of individual nails arranged in parallel fashion and held together by means of a spiral wound tape or a pair of spiral wound thin wires, running transversely to the direction of the nails, and to which the nails are lightly adhered.
The nailer has greatly increased the productivity of roofers, compared to their productivity when nails were driven into place individually with a hammer.
Nails for a nailer are brought to the job site in a nail box, which contains a plurality of rolls or coils of nails, usually stacked one on top of the other and usually with a spacer, such as a plastic sheet or cardboard, between successive coils.
When a roofer needs a coil of nails, he (or she) must climb down from the roof, go to the nail box, which is usually placed on the ground, take a coil of nails, and climb back up on the roof and load the coil into the nailer and resume work. The roofer will customarily load the roll of nails into a pouch, which is typically made of cowhide, to carry the roll from the nail box back to the roof. This arrangement offers two problems: first, the pouch with the roll of nails therein gets in the roofer's way when he leans over, and secondly, the nails may be bent, particularly when the roofer leans over. Bent nails will jam in the nailer, so that the nailer will not function. It is imperative that such bent nails be removed, which is difficult, particularly when the nails in a roll are unitized by means of coiled wires to which the nails are joined by braising.